Quilts, TBR, News

I am busy working on quilts and reading my review books--but not preparing for Thanksgiving because our son and his girlfriend are hosting their families! 

Here is my quilt April Showers Brings May Flowers at my quilt group show and tell.

After six years, all my Wizard of Oz blocks are designed, embroidered, and set in a quilt top! I worked hard on the first designs, sketching, and resketching Dorothy and her friends and the witches. Then we moved, Seeing the Riley Blake Dorothy's Journey fabric spurred me to come up with some more blocks and finish this top! 

I have my Hospital Sketches blocks sewn together and am working on a border.

I made grand-pup Ellie a wardrobe of scarfs that slip over her collar. Also a fleece coat. We had an early snow before Halloween that lasted a week. Ellie loved it! Now we are scrambling to clean the gutters and mulch the leaves.

Ellie with her collar scarf in the October snow

We went to Orchestra Hall to hear a concert with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Maestro Leonard Slatkin directed Pictures At An Exhibition and a piece commissioned for his 75th birthday, Another Time composed by Mohammed Fairouz, based on poems by W. H. Auden and sung by Miles Mykkanen. We heard Fairouz's  Cello Concerto Desert Sorrows when it premiered with the DSO several years ago. The concert began with Rossini's Roman Carnival Overture and an encore of a Russian sailor's dance started and ended the concert.

We also bought tickets to see the Swingel Singers in a Christmas Concert.

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I was thrilled to notice that I am now an Amazon Top 1000 Reviewer! Whoo-hoo!

I found a note written to me by my grandfather dated right after I started college. "Write Write Write!" he advised.

I have been listening to the upcoming audiobook of Romalyn Tighlman's novel To The Stars Through Difficulties, which I reviewed here. I am so enjoying the audiobook and revisiting Romayln's wonderful story.

Several more egalleys have been added to my virtual shelf:

• Fannie Lou Hamer by Maegan Parker Brooks, a biography of the Civil Rights heroine
• The Cadottes: A Fur Trade Family on Lake Superior by Robert Silbernagel
• The Girl in White Gloves by Keri Maher, historical fiction about Grace Kelley
• Frida in America by Celia Stahr about Frida Kahol
• The Jane Austen Society by Natalie Jenner
• Miss Austen by Gil Hornby

Still to be read are

• The Great Unknown by Peg Kingman
• A Good Neighborhood by Theresa Ann Fowler

Next up on my reading list is ARC

• Eden Mine by S. M. Hulse

Also coming is ARC

• Rachel Maddow: A Biography by Lisa Rogak

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Today begins a week of work in the house--we are replacing forty-year-old vinyl flooring in the entryways with porcelain tile and then installing new carpet!

Before grouting...

The carpet is fifteen years old--and maroon! We will replace it with a lighter, neutral "sand" color, as seen in the computer-generated visualizer pic below.

There will be a lot of rearranging of furniture to come. I already moved the piano from the living room into my office.

News and a Morning In Detroit

I've been busy but we took the morning off to see the new exhibit Bitter/Sweet at the Detroit Institute of Art. Coffee, tea, and chocolate had a huge impact on Europe in the 1600s, and the wealthy folk liked pretty, expensive ways of serving these exotic drinks. On display are coffee and tea sets and art and prints showing the imbibing these drinks. They are presented in a historical perspective--plus we had samples of hot chocolate! See photos at http://ow.ly/NgeX306jUVJ

Bitter/Sweet exhibit: Pineapple coffee pot

Wednesday we went to TWO book clubs! Our local library club read Black River by S. M. Hulse, which I loved when I read the galley in late 2014. The author also Skyped and joined us for a brief question and answer time. We had a great discussion.

Blair Library Afternoon Book Club talking to S. M. Hulse

That evening we attended another local book club to discuss A Man Called Ove. I won't comment....I didn't finish the book. But 90% gave it 5 stars.

We are nearly finished redecorating our bathroom! Nothing major: paint, new shower curtain, new hardware. But the change is amazing.

The White Lake Lighthouse, Montague MI

Our newly decorated bath

And more books are coming my way. I won Bridget Jones's Baby by Helen Fielding. I enjoyed Bridget Jones's Diary and love the movie, so I hope this will be a great read to lift the spirits. I also got Born a Crime by Trevor Noah and started it right away.

Today we went to the Detroit Institute of Art to see the member preview of their new exhibit Bitter/Sweet: Coffee, Tea and Chocolate. I forgot my camera....but you can see photos of the exhibit at these websites:
http://www.freep.com/story/entertainment/arts/2016/11/15/dia-coffee-tea-chocolate/93880440/
http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2016/11/see_coffee_tea_and_chocolate_f.html#0

The back of the DIA from the parking lot. Yes, it is downtown!

I finally realized it is the 21st c and my cellphone had a camera! So I did get a few photos.

I had not seen this great African Adinkra cloth before. It is made of cotton, vegetable dyes and colored thread. The design symbols have special meaning. Adinkra cloth is worn at funerals.

Adinkra cloth detail. DIA collection

Adinkra cloth, DIA collection

Adinkra cloth detail, DIA collection

I was glad to return to the American collection to see some of the artists discussed in the book Of Arms and Artists by Paul Staiti. (see my review at http://ow.ly/QFaG306jQAV)

John Singleton Copley's portrait of Colonel John Montresor

Several school classes were at the museum. I saw three teenage boys looking at Copely's painting Watson and the Shark and could not help but share the story behind the painting as told by Staiti in his book!

We had to visit the American landscape art to see Frederick Church's Cotopaxi. He painted this vast landscape of an erupting volcano which dwarfs a human figure in the foreground. The grandeur of nature and our puny part of it is a major theme of American 19thc landscape artists.

Another Church painting caught my eye. It shows the ruins of many civilizations, representing the temporal nature of human works against nature's eternal sun.

Stephen Hawking just warned that because of climate change and threat of nuclear war humans have about 1000 years left before we die out or find a new place to inhabit. Perhaps the cockroaches will inherit the earth...

Downtown Detroit was lovely, with roses still blooming. I shed my jacket!

We lunched at Traffic Jam & Snug. It is a cool Midtown place that grows and makes much of its food including cheese, ice cream, beer, and baked goods. I had their home grown, home made Strawberry Lemon Basil tea and a braised beef brisket panini and sweet potato fries. (Too much! I brought half home!)

Best wishes for a wonderful Thanksgiving this weekl!